When Tony Blair said For years education was a social cause. Today it is an economic imperative he was simply echoing what was agreed at the Lisbon meeting of the European Council of Ministers. Education in every European country is regarded above all as a key part of the economy, charged with producing the right sort of 'human capital' for economic competitiveness. Business wants to see education run on a model of management imported from the world of business
Government-prescribed objectives, measurable attainment targets, systems of external evaluation, commercial-style contracts, diversity of provision, local education markets driven by consumer "choice, workforce performance management systems, all geared to continuous
After the ESF: a
growing
European network of activists in education
During the planning of o
these seminars and workshop
new links have been made between activists in a number
of European countries, including in militant unions and tendencies such as theo STES-intersindical teachers union in Spain, Cobas-Scuola in Italy, Ecole Emancipée in the FSU in France and the Socialist Teachers Alliance in the NUT (UK). This network, further strengthened by the ESF, will continue to exchange ideas and experiences and plan actions during the coming year. improvement' in productivity... this is increasingly the language education speaks across Europe. What business itself wants to do in education - education as a market for business to make profits
Increasingly private companies are colonising state education systems in Europe, taking over from public agencies the provision of education services.
The rhetoric of 'decentralisation' and 'public private partnerships' means doors are being opened for private companies, and in a number of countries from Sweden to Italy and Spain there is a big expansion of funding of private schools by public money.
At the same time new forms of centralised control by government rely on the private sector to advise on, 'deliver' and evaluate policy initiatives.
These business agendas are incompatible with the concept of education as a public service committed to democracy and equality - and of course they exploit the failure of previous European governments supposedly committed to these goals, especially those of the centre-left, to achieve them.
But now even the limited but important gains of the postwar period, embodied in the idea of a common comprehensive education for all, are being dismantled. The fight against inequality
The biggest casualty is equality. Tying education ever more tightly to labour market needs inevitably reinforces inequality, because producing a stratified labour force requires a stratified and hierarchical education system.
This is the reality behind the rhetoric of education for the knowledge economy'most jobs, even those within the so-called 'knowledge
industries'
themselves, require a high level of education, so why waste state spending on those who will occupy them?
And of course it is young people from poor and working class backgrounds who find themselves at the bottom of the education and jobs pyramids, while governments safeguard the benefits middle and upper class families derive from the education system.
Among those most vulnerable to business agendas for education are children and young people from minority ethnic backgrounds, for two
First, because they are disproportionately likely to be poor they are disproportionately less likely to succeed in the education system unless it adopts the sort of radical policies which businessdriven governments will not countenance. Second, because education systems often perpetuate patterns of racial and ethnic discrimination, in the best of cases, by adopting policies which are well-intentioned but underpowered, in the worst of cases, by actively promoting discrimination by, for example, rejecting the cultures and needs of oppressed groups.
These are the themes which underpin four seminars and one workshop on education at the ESF (check final programme for times). But critique alone is not enough.
The seminars will also be opportunities to share experiences of opposition and resistance and ideas about alternatives to the neo-liberal agenda.